Friday, October 5, 2012

Wyoming wolf hunt opens for nearly 3,000 hunters

Posted: Thursday, Oct 4th, 2012BY: Travis Pearson

PINEDALE – After years of court struggles and impassioned opinions
coming from each side of the wolf debate, hunting opened throughout the
state on Monday only a month after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
delisted the Wyoming gray wolf.

Now only one number, 52, really matters for hunters, as this is how many
wolves can be killed this fall in the trophy game management area. The
Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) sold 2,909 wolf tags (all but 90
to residents), including 286 to hunters in Sublette County, as of
Wednesday. Park County bought the most licenses, with 798.

As of Thursday at 9 a.m., six wolves have been taken in five different
hunt areas. No wolves have been taken from any Sublette County hunt
areas, which allow for a combined 11 wolves.

Many local hunters and outfitters purchased tags and told the Roundup
they’re ready for what could be a short-lived hunt, with court cases
looming for Nov. 1.

“I’ve got one myself, just because … I’m afraid that it might not last,”
Paul Crittenden, owner of Bondurant-based Sleeping Indian Outfitters,
said. “They might find a judge to shut it down.”

Like many outfitters or hunters, Crittenden is afield quite often, and
not having a wolf tag would preclude him from taking a wolf if the
opportunity arose. He will focus on Sublette County hunt areas – 10, 11
and 12 – particularly in the northern portion of the county.

Crittenden will be guiding hunters on trips with wolves as a target, in
addition to his personal wolf hunting. He said, while the wolf pursuit
isn’t “popular yet” as a business venture, it’s still something the
company plans to try.

Boulder resident Scott Rogers offered similar reasons for his wolf tag.
Rogers has tags for other animals, but that doesn’t mean he won’t be on
the lookout for wolves, especially considering the rarity of the
occasion.

“I’m actually looking for deer, but a wolf is surely on the priority
list,” he said. “This is an opportunity – with the laws, the courts and
all the lawsuits coming around – we may not have again.”

Thomson Outfitters Owner Todd Stevie hunted wolves in 2008 during the
brief period the state took over management. He has tags again for this
season, and although he works as an outfitter, he plans to hunt them on a
personal level, too.

“I sure want to do my part to control the population if the opportunity presents itself,” he said.

Like Crittenden, Stevie will also lead hunts, mostly in Hunt Area 11,
the eastern portion of the county in the Wind River Mountain Range, as
well as in the predator zone. He said there has not been “an
overabundance” of interest, but a few hunters have expressed the desire
to hunt wolves.

Other outfitters in the area are not offering wolf hunts. Terry Pollard,
owner of Bald Mountain Outfitters, said he has no plans to take clients
into the wilderness looking for wolves this season but may do so in the
future.

Fear and loathing toward wolves is as old as America, but most local
hunters seconded Stevie’s practical approach to the wolf hunt.

“It’s not a killing thing, I hate this animal thing; it’s an all animals
need to be managed thing,” Rogers said. “I think it’s purely a
management deal. They all need to be managed like everything else.”

Rogers also mentioned the “nostalgia” of the wolf hunt, which many
publications have reported. Pinedale resident and hunter Cody Johler
focused on this aspect, along with support of the WGFD, as the reasons
for his purchase.

“I think the main reason I got the wolf tag was it was easy to get
because it was only $18. … That $18 went toward supporting the Game and
Fish management program for the wolves. This was the first year we’ve
really had to do any management of the wolves as far as hunting and
everything,” he said, later adding, “I would say certainly since this is
the first year we’ve been allowed to hunt wolves [that] it was kind of a
novelty thing to get one of the wolf tags.”

The WGFD has similar hunting procedures in place as with other predator
species. Hunters must call a 24-hour hotline before heading out to
ensure the quota for the hunt area they plan to use has not been filled.
Also, outfitters must update their information to include wolves.

If a hunter is successful, the kill must be reported within 24 hours.
For wolves taken in the predator zone, where they can be killed on sight
and by any means, hunters have 10 days to report the casualty.

As difficult as all the protocols that must be followed, most hunters
say successfully shooting a wolf is even more of a challenge; the rare
animal is seldom seen in the wild, and only somewhere between 200 and
300 animals exist in Wyoming.

Stevie, who has hunted wolves before, said the hunt presents a tough test.

“They’re going to be really, really hard to hunt,” he said. “They’re
smart. Most of the wolves around here have the feds – when they get into
livestock, the feds hunt them – so they’re used to being hunted.”

Crittenden has seen wolves near his Bondurant property, but he said,
having never hunted wolves before, “we don’t know what it’s going to
entail.”

Most other hunters are in the same boat. Neither Johler nor Rogers has hunted wolves, but both recognize the issues.

“I would imagine it’d be very difficult. I’ve been trying to take
pictures of them for a year now, and I haven’t been able to do it,”
Johler said.

Johler was the only hunter who told the Roundup he has no real interest in killing a wolf or calling ahead to check the quota.

“It was mostly for support; I really have no intention of shooting a
wolf,” he said. “I probably would really not even shoot a wolf if it
walked right in front of me.”

Rogers has not formally hunted wolves, but he’s had some close
experiences. While hunting deer in the Gros Ventre Wilderness, he and a
hunting partner heard wolves howl and briefly saw them from less than
100 yards last year.

“You can look back through history and talk to older people … I think
wolves are probably going to be the hardest animal to hunt. They’re
smart,” he said, adding the wolves are crafty and will quickly learn to
avoid gunshots and hunters.

And unlike Johler, most hunters didn’t flinch when asked if, with wolf
tag in hand, call made to the WGFD and out hunting another animal
species, there would be any hesitation if a wolf walked across their
path.

The film offers an abbreviated history of the relationship between wolves and people—told from the wolf’s perspective—from a time when they coexisted to an era in which people began to fear and exterminate the wolves.

The return of wolves to the northern Rocky Mountains has been called one of America’s greatest conservation stories. But wolves are facing new attacks by members of Congress who are gunning to remove Endangered Species Act protections before the species has recovered.

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Inescapably, the realization was being borne in upon my preconditioned mind that the centuries-old and universally accepted human concept of wolf character was a palpable lie... From this hour onward, I would go open-minded into the lupine world and learn to see and know the wolves, not for what they were supposed to be, but for what they actually were.

-Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

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“If you look into the eyes of a wild wolf, there is something there more powerful than many humans can accept.” – Suzanne Stone